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Grow your own: Week 15 of BigBarn’s food and drink weeks

For many of us diving in a getting our hands dirty in the garden is more than just about saving money, it’s about the satisfaction of watching your seed grow and grow until you have a beaming plant that is brimming with goods. Being able to harvest your own food is not only exciting but encourages us to eat healthier food and enjoy fresher produce.

At this time of year asparagus is the god of fresh vegetables and a shining example of how quickly a food can spoil as time passes after picking. Sweetcorn is the same, my friend Nick insists that his wife has the water boiling before picking his corn, and removing the husk as he runs back to the kitchen!

Really fresh sweet corn

This is the kind of passion and enthusiasm we Brits need to feel about our food, and I am sure that growing food helps. Certainly the project we ran with a primary school proved this, with kids who said they hated vegetables munching on raw carrots they had grown. Click here for the video.

At BigBarn we are keen for everyone to have a go at growing food and even start trading it locally with our Crop for the shop scheme. All part of our mission to build a social, LOCAL, food industry, as an alternative to the anti-social national one, that gives neither producers, or consumers, a good deal.

There is no doubt that by cooking and eating fresh fruit and veg, half this country’s population would become more healthy, and save money. Seasonal vegetables are normally very reasonably priced compared to a ready meal, or imported food, especially if sourced locally.

A home baked potato could cost around 5p compared to a McCane ready made one, in a box, for 50p. Likewise a soup made from chopped mixed veg and some stock cubes will be a fraction of the cost of tinned soup and much more nutritious.

BigBarn local food map with Crop for the Shop & Cheaper than Supermarket flags

Growing veg can also kindle some artistic flair like my bean pole wigwam made from willow poles pruned from a local overgrown willow tree.

So there are now 4 reasons to grow your own; save money, get healthy, get enthused and artistic accolade, and, make money by selling your veg through local shops. Take a look at our seed map to help you get started in the garden

To find these shops look for icons marked with a rosette on BigBarn, if your local food shop is not flagged with a rosette, or not on BigBarn, please tell them all about us.